But there is in France a workman who extracts coal from the earth. Now, it so happens that the officials, whom the miner and I _contribute_ to pay for preserving to each of us his freedom of labour, and the free disposal of its produce (which is property), it so happens, I say, that these officials have become newly enlightened and assumed other duties. They have taken it into their heads to compare my labour with that of the miner. Consequently, they have forbidden me to warm myself with Belgian fuel: and when I go to the frontier with my piece of furniture to receive the coal, I find it prohibited from entering France, which comes to the same thing as if they prohibited my piece of furniture from going out. I then reason with myself--if we had never paid the government in order to save us the trouble of defending our own property, would the miner have had the right to go to the frontier to prohibit me from making an advantageous exchange, on the ground that it would be better for him that this exchange should not be effected? Assuredly not. If he had made so unjust an attempt, we would have joined issue on the spot, he, urged on by his unjust pretensions, I, strong in my right of legitimate defence. We have appointed and paid a public officer for the special purpose of preventing such contests. How does it happen, then, that I find the miner and him concurring in restraining my liberty and hampering my industry, in limiting the field of my exertions? If the public officer had taken my part, I might have conceived his right; he would have derived it from my own; for lawful defence is, indeed, a right. But on what principle should he aid the miner in his injustice? I learn, then, that the public officer has changed his nature. He is no longer a simple mortal invested with rights delegated to him by other men, who, consequently, possess them. No. He is a being superior to humanity, drawing his right from himself, and, amongst these rights, he arrogates to himself that of calculating our profits, of holding the balance between our various circumstances and conditions. It is very well, say I; in that case, I will overwhelm him with claims and demands, while I see a richer man than myself in the country. He will not listen to you, it may be said to me, for if he listen to you, he will be a Communist, and he takes good care not to forget that his duty is to secure properties, not to destroy them. What disorder, what confusion in facts; but what can you expect when there is such disorder and confusion in ideas? You may have resisted Communism vigorously in the abstract; but while at the same time you humour, and support, and foster it in that part of our legislation which it has tainted, your labours will be in vain. It is a poison, which, with your consent and approbation, has glided into all our laws and into our morals, and now you are indignant that it is followed by its natural consequences.